Castles and colonists: An archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland

By Vanessa Siddle Walker

Castles and colonists is the first book to examine life in the leading province of Elizabeth I's nascent empire. Klinglehofer shows how an Ireland of colonising English farmers and displaced Irish 'savages' are ruled by an imported Protestant elite from their fortified manors and medieval castles.
Richly illustrated, it displays how a generation of English 'adventurers' including such influential intellectual and political figures as Spenser and Ralegh, tried to create a new kind of England, one that gave full opportunity to their Renaissance tastes and ambitions.
Based on decades of research, Castles and colonisers details how archaelogy had revealed the traces of a short-lived, but significant culture which has been, until now, eclipsed in ideological conflicts between Tudor queens, Hapsburg hegemony and native Irish traditions,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781847797735

Vanessa Siddle Walker

Vanessa Siddle Walker, assistant professor of educational studies at Emory University, is coeditor of Facing Racism in American Education.

Book preview

Castles and Colonists: An archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland

The Manchester Spenser is a monograph and text series devoted to historical and textual approaches to Edmund Spenser – to his life, times, places, works and contemporaries.

A growing body of work in Spenser and Renaissance studies, fresh with confidence and curiosity and based on solid historical research, is being written in response to a general sense that our ability to interpret texts is becoming limited without the excavation of further knowledge. So the importance of research in nearby disciplines is quickly being recognised, and interest renewed: history, archaeology, religious or theological history, book history, translation, lexicography, commentary and glossary – these require treatment for and by students of Spenser.

The Manchester Spenser, to feed, foster and build on these refreshed attitudes, aims to publish reference tools, critical, historical, biographical and archaeological monographs on or related to Spenser, from several disciplines, and to publish editions of primary sources and classroom texts of a more wide-ranging scope.

The Manchester Spenser consists of work with stamina, high standards of scholarship and research, adroit handling of evidence, rigour of argument, exposition and documentation.

The series will encourage and assist research into, and develop the readership of, one of the richest and most complex writers of the early modern period.

General Editor J.B. Lethbridge

Editorial Board Helen Cooper, Thomas Herron, Carol V. Kaske,

James C. Nohrnberg & Brian Vickers

Also available

Celebrating Mutabilitie: Essays on

Edmund Spenser’s Mutabilitie Cantos Jane Grogan (ed.)

Shakespeare and Spenser: Attractive opposites J.B. Lethbridge (ed.)

Renaissance erotic romance: Philhellene Protestantism,

Renaissance translation and English literary politics Victor Skretkowicz

Castles and Colonists

An archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland

ERIC KLINGELHOFER

Copyright © Eric Klingelhofer 2010

The right of Eric Klingelhofer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK

and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

Distributed in the United States exclusively by

Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,

NY 10010, USA

Distributed in Canada exclusively by

UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,

Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 0 7190 8246 7

First published 2010

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Minion by

Koinonia, Manchester

Printed and Bound in Great Britain by

CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

But that eternal fount of love and grace,

Still flowing forth his goodnesse unto all,

Now seeing left a waste and emptie place

In his wyde Pallace, through those Angels fall,

Cast to supply the same, and to enstall

A new unknowen Colony therein,

Whose root from earths base groundworke shold begin.

Edmund Spenser, An Hymne of Heavenly Love, 1596

Contents

    List of figures

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

1 Archaeology and Elizabeth’s empire

2 Elizabethan fortifications in Ireland

3 Colonial settlement

4 Vernacular architecture

5 The archaeology of Kilcolman Castle

6 Spenserian architecture in Ireland

7 Conclusions

    Select bibliography

    Index

List of figures

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos and drawings are by the author.

Acknowledgements

A long research project has many, many persons contributing to its success. I must first acknowledge my debt to those scholars who had previously studied similar aspects of Elizabethan Ireland and who generously shared with me the results of their research: David Quinn, Rolf Loeber, Paul Kerrigan, David Newman Johnson, and Con Manning. In Northern Ireland, Nick Brannon introduced me to Ulster Plantation sites, and in Cork, Mick Monk, a comrade from the trenches of Anglo-Saxon Southampton, welcomed my interest from the start. University College Cork, both the faculty and staff of his Department of Archaeology and John Irwin of the Civil Engineering Department, consistently provided material assistance to my fieldwork, and the Cork Archaeological Survey kindly shared their files with me. I am grateful to the members of both organizations, and also to Terry Barry and John Bradley, who encouraged my research and urged me to publish my conclusions. James Lyttleton has kindly kept me informed on contemporary fieldwork. Members of the International Spenser Society have opened my eyes to the world of The Faerie Queene and beyond; Sheila Cavanagh and Tom Herron have tactfully corrected my Spenserian errors. I am also grateful to reviewers for the Manchester Spenser series, who located infelicities in this text and brought to my attention recent publications.

Financial support for the Munster Plantation projects came from Mercer University, Earthwatch Institute, the National Committee on Archaeology of the Royal Irish Academy, and the Royal Archaeological Institute. Landowners who kindly permitted fieldwork were Colm Power at Dunboy Castle, the late Tom Leahy at Mogeely Castle, George and Ivy Tanner at Carrigeen, Patrick Higgins at Curraglass, and Charles Harold-Barry at Kilcolman Castle. Special thanks for help and hospitality go to Margaret Ridgway of Kilcolman Wildfowl Refuge, and to Arthur Montgomery and Anna Maria Hajbe of Doneraile Court. Eamon Horgan and the residents of Doneraile provided my teams much entertainment at the annual Faerie Queene Festival, as did the horse fairs at Mallow, Co. Waterford, and Buttevant, Co. Cork.

In the many seasons of fieldwork in Ireland, I had the good fortune to collaborate with a number of professional archaeologists and to be helped by many students, volunteers, and local enthusiasts. The Dunboy 1989 team comprised Jada Hamby and Mark Hardin; the Mogeely 1990 team was Kieran Hoare and Roderick Klingelhofer; the Mogeely 1991 team comprised Alicia Bailey, Jennifer Neal, John Rawls, and Scott Turner. At Mogeely, Curraglass, and Carrigeen in 1992, Franc Myles co-directed, assisted by Peter Ball and Eamonn Cotter, with students Graham Austin, Ian Doyle, Caroline Sandes, John Skelton, and Bond Thomas. In 1993, with co-director Franc Myles, the staff comprised Peter Ball and Eamonn Cotter assisted by Aoife Christie, Ian Doyle, Alec Dundan, Ruth Kelly, Liz O’Driscoll, and Caroline Sandes, with volunteers Graham Austin, Marie Myhrman, Lotta Nyman, Laura Tallon, Angela Wallace, and Sharon Weadick.

At Kilcolman Castle, the 1993 staff comprised Eamonn Cotter, Bill Henry, Irene Henry, and Alexandra Klingelhofer; Team I was Joan Arbuthnot, Jim Brim-hall, Karen Brimhall, Lee Davis, Mary Margaret Davis, Ruthanne Harstad, Pat Headley, Judy Lydon, Melody Settler, Kate Torgersen, Tom Tredway, and Pat Young; Team II was Irene Calero, Vicki Crouse, Bill Gould, and Tom Tredway; and Team III was Petra Beunderman, Sheila Cavanagh, Erik Clark, James Daugherty, Bob Harker, Ray Malafronte, Mary Beth Moriarty, Daniel Ranalli, Ben Shuford, Marlene Shuford, Susan Steele, Marcia Stone, and Robert Stone. The 1994 staff comprised Caroline Raison, Carter Hudgins, Jacinta Keiley, and Alexandra Klingelhofer; Team I was Joan Butterfield, David Clark, Maxine Clark, Jim Dunaway, Louise Dunaway, Rob Garcia, Kathy Irwin, Susie Phips, Jane Tonsula, and Jessica White; Team II was Cherie Blizzard, Ellen Drezka, Lauren Farber, John Fisher, Theresa Fisher, N. Ganesh, Ben Gettler, Melissa Gwynn, John Kelly, and Dean Koenig. The 1995 staff comprised Ian Doyle, Alycia Feindel, and Alexandra Klingelhofer; Team I was Christopher Davis, Anne Harvey, Michael Harvey, and Berit Huseby; Team II was Ese Burlingame, Pansy Collins, Wesley Cooper, John Croom, Roberta Darling, Theresa Donham, Cindy Jenkins, Wendy Long, Crysande Martin, Alton Sannar, Nancy Sanner, Charles Sides, Dan Thorpe, and Tanja Trivan. The 1996 staff members were Marie Blake, Wesley Cooper, Ian Doyle, Carter Hudgins, and Alexandra Klingelhofer; Team I was Wilma Bennett, Jane Campbell, Jennifer Dozio, Mary Gosline, Gary Harris, Patricia Harris, Ann Hearn, Beth Hearn, Dorothy Herzberg, Eva Kornreich, Janet Littlejohn, Maryann Ullman, Megan Weiss, Amy Wexler, and Jennifer Wexler; Team TT comprised Alan Barr, Alaistair Barr, Jack Konner, Emily Berlith, Richard Berlith, Maureen McAllister, and Ginny Ray.

Special thanks go to Eamonn Cotter and Clare McCutcheon, who guided me in the history and culture of County Cork, and to my American colleagues, Carter Hudgins and Bill and Irene Henry, who generously gave me their time and skills. My family had occasion to join me in County Cork, but for much of the decade they bore my summer absences with patience, for which I am grateful. I must thank above all my wife, Alexandra, a loving companion and wise adviser, both at home and abroad.

Introduction

To the Queene.

Out of the ashes of disolacon and wastnes of this your wretched realme of Ireland. Vouchsafe moste mightie Empresse our Dred soveraigne to receive the voices of a fewe moste unhappie Ghostes … far from the light of your gracious sunshine which spreadeth it selfe over Countries most remote … yet upon this miserable land being your owne just and heritable dominion letteth no one little beam of your large mercie to be shed.

Edmund Spenser, 1598¹

The epigraph offered at the beginning of this book reveals Spenser’s image of Man’s creation as a divine plan to colonize that ‘waste and emptie place’ forfeited by the Fallen Angels, a clear metaphor for Elizabeth’s policy of settling Ireland with English Protestants. Two years later, in the quote above, he penned a desperate plea begging the Queen to help ‘this miserable land’. No one spoke better for the colonial experience of Elizabeth’s Munster Plantation than a man who lived there throughout its existence, who married and raised a family there, who served its government in several positions, and who lost in its downfall all that he had gained. Edmund Spenser, even more than Sir Walter Raleigh, who was by far the largest landowner in Munster, wrote both directly and symbolically of the land and the conditions of life there. Spenser had resurrected from chivalric romances the idealized court and dreamland of The Faerie Queene. As his prefatory letter to Raleigh explained, ‘in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faeryland’.² One could argue that Spenser, by not limiting Faeryland specifically to England, may have considered Ireland part of Elizabeth’s ‘kingdome [of] Faery land’, perhaps as a distant province. In any case, ten years after the meeting in Munster between Raleigh and Spenser that led to the latter’s visit to Elizabeth’s court and the printing of the first part of The Faerie Queene, Spenser’s home, his authority, and his dreams were ‘ashes’, and Ireland only a ‘wretched realme’.

At the end of Elizabeth’s reign the Munster settlement was indeed in ruins, a failure like all the other colonial ‘plantings’ or ‘plantations’ of English people overseas. This book examines how this occurred, and what material evidence survives for the short-lived colony.³ It is an archaeology of Elizabethan Ireland, that is, the Ireland that Elizabethan Englishmen and women created, albeit limitedly and briefly. For the Irish, this period marks the renewal of a series of forced changes in government, landowning, and culture by which Irishness was replaced by institutions and behaviour approved of, and even dictated by, London. But because the English attempted several colonies scattered over different continents during the last half of Elizabeth’s reign, this book must also consider activities in Ireland within the context of nascent efforts to establish an Elizabethan Empire. Documentary evidence for these developments having been thoroughly plumbed, another avenue of research, the archaeology of the proto-colonial period, can help bring new information to the matter.

A personal motive for undertaking the archaeology of the Munster Plantation was the realization of its potential value, when my excavation of early colonial sites in Virginia during the 1970s led me to consider their precedents. The later colonies of Ulster and Massachusetts have been the standard locations for comparative material, both documentary and archaeological. Yet, by the fact that it preceded Jamestown by twenty years, the Tudor colony in southern Ireland was to me logically more relevant to the early settlement of Virginia (as well